I'm jolted awake to the sound of my car's alarm blaring and the smell of gasoline wafting through the air; I don't remember what happened last night but the gash up the side of my leg and head tells me that whatever it was, it wasn't good. The front bumper is completely caved in like an accordion and there are shards of glass all over the ground around the car—covered in what I can only assume is my blood. As I stumble out of the wreckage, I can see the front end wrapped around the trunk of a tree while the door has been peeled back like a banana.
My head rings as I try and recollect what could have possibly happened, a fuzzy memory of an argument my wife and a dog chasing after me is all that I can recall; it doesn't make sense at all. I take my phone out of my pocket; the screen's cracked, but it's still working enough that I can call for help. A voice comes on the other end—it's a woman, "Hello? You've called emergency services, how may I help you?" She asks. I try to keep calm as I tell her everything, but it's hard; the frigid air is only making everything worse that it already is. "Okay, sir, we'll send someone right away." she states as I finish explaining.
After I hang up the phone, I take the time to get a better look the scene of the accident. The first thing I notice is how deep the claw marks embedded into the body of the car are. They're so deep, there's no way a dog did this; in fact, I can't think of anything with claws this long and sharp at all. The footprints littering the area don't look like any animal's I've seen either; they almost look human, but I'm wearing boots and I know my feet aren't this big. To make things worse, there's a trail of blood leading off into the woods—whoever or whatever did this must be nearby.
Luckily, my worries are short lived as a police cruiser pulls up to the scene. The glass is fogged over, but I can the faint outline of an officer inside. As the door opens, a woman steps out of the car; she's wearing a uniform that looks slightly too small, with a badge on her chest.
"Sir, you aren't safe out here." she says as she approaches me, shining her flashlight in my eyes, "I'm going to need to take you to the ER, that cut on your leg looks pretty bad."
She sounds eerily similar to the woman I just talked to on the phone, but there's something off; something with the way she speaks is ringing alarm bells in my head. It's uncanny.
"Come with me, sir." she repeats, grabbing my arm. Her grip is like iron, it hurts, but I don't really have the energy to even think about it. She's right anyways, this place isn't safe.
As soon as we both get in the car, she speeds off down the road, not even bothering to turn on the siren. I'm not sure if it's the loss of blood or the stench that seems to have permeated in the fabric of the seats, but my stomach starts to feel queasy the moment we start driving. While I'm trying to avoid throwing up, the officer veers off the side of the road as branches and leaves smack across the window. I have no idea where we're going, but it's clear it isn't to any hospital. Looking in the rearview mirror, I can see the woman staring ahead, completely stone faced like there's nothing wrong with this little detour.
The ride goes on for quite some time before we come to an abrupt stop in front of some beaten down cabin in the middle of the woods. Stepping out of the car, the officer slowly walks over to my side of the vehicle and unlocks the door, pulling me out with that same iron grip as before. My heart pounds as she then drags me inside the cabin, still as expressionless as before, like this is all routine for her. There's a mattress in the corner but that's it—no windows, just a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling that doesn't seem to be working. As she pushes me down onto the bed, she speaks up for the first time in what must have been a half an hour, "Why did you have to leave me?" It sounds garbled, inhuman, her words coming in short breaths. "Why couldn't you have just accepted my love?"
She moves closer, and the stench of death and decay is overwhelming. A sickening feeling creeps up my spine as she leans in close to me, gurgling while she speaks up again, "You made me do this to them. I never wanted to hurt you, I love you, I always have..."
Memories start to flood back as I hear those words; memories of the previous night, of being chased by a monster that I thought was my wife. "Love? W-what do you mean? Who are you?" I stutter in response, terrified of the answer I might receive.
The moonlight shining through the roof illuminates the room as her body starts to contort and shift. Her skin is like wax, melting away in patches to reveal horrible matted brown fur covering her body. Her clothing bursts at the seams as her bones shift and contort beneath the fabric; her body becoming more monstrous and animalistic by the second. "Your useless wife..." she snarls, "That snooping cop..." Her voice is starting to grow more discordant, "You never needed them, which is why I had to dispose of them all, they were such a burden to you..."
After that, the changes resume, her limbs crack and elongate, ears and a muzzle protrude from her head, and her teeth and claws sharpen as her hideous transformation comes to a finish. I don't know what the hell she is, but she isn't human anymore, she's an abomination—an amalgamation of human and beast, standing tall and twisted. As she stares down at me, I can see myself reflected in the pits of her eyes like a broken mirror, fear evident and visible on my face.
"Why do you keep finding yourself involved with these burdens? No human woman will ever love you like I can!" she growls as she moves even closer, "I watched over you, saved you, why can't I be loved too?"
I have nowhere to go now, trapped against the corner of the cabin by the beast. The smell of her damp fur enters my nostrils and forces out a whimper from me, "You—you're a monster..."
She's gone completely feral, sticky spittle dripping from her muzzle